Happy As You Want To Be

Until fairly recently, I was somehow under the erroneous notion that hot flashes stop shortly after menopause. But no, quite the contrary: they can continue for years afterwards, even decades for some unfortunate women. And though I look forward to the end of the less desirable, OK, not-at-all desirable symptoms of perimenopause, a new study in Psychological Science finds that human beings are not good at predicting what will make them happy. What researchers found was that when you think about happiness in the future, personality matters more than what actually transpires.

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In the Belgian study, subjects were asked to rate how happy they expected to be after a certain event (in this case, if their preferred candidate in the last American presidential election won). The grumpier folks were still grumpy even if their favorite candidate was successful. In other words, the future event that came to pass did not make them any happier. On the other hand, those people with sunnier personalities were about as happy as they expected to be.

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Researchers found that the discrepancy between imagined future feelings and actual ones was due to "personality neglect." What does this mean when planning for the future? "Don't focus on the event; think about who you are," advises the lead researcher in the study.

So reader, if you think about how happy you might be in the future if some event does occur – say an island vacation or the end of night sweats – the best predictor of how you will feel is how you're feeling right now. Food for thought, huh?